


Little Creature

by Dressed_In_Darkness



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Kid Eren Yeager, Kid Jean Kirstein, Rating May Change, Siren Levi, mermaid levi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 17:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16022270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dressed_In_Darkness/pseuds/Dressed_In_Darkness
Summary: One day, while out playing, Eren and Jean stumble upon a mysterious black egg. Eren believes it’s nothing more than an ordinary pebble, but Jean thinks it’s a dragon egg. What hatches from it isn’t a dragon, though, and this little creature will change their lives forever.





	Little Creature

**Author's Note:**

> _For Norii, who made this possible. Thank you for your kindness and generosity._
> 
> Fan art: [☽](http://alienfae.tumblr.com/post/177464367174/smol-mer-levi-and-child-eren-its-for-a-fic-that) & [☽](https://www.instagram.com/p/BkJMz3qHGCl/?taken-by=lina.0_07)

“You have to leave it out in the sun, dummy. Otherwise it won’t work.” Jean snatched the pebble back from me and placed it on the windowsill, where the sun shone on it through the blinds. “There. It should stay warm here.”

     In the late afternoon, while we’d been playing by the pond near my house, the pebble had washed up on shore, covered in moss and smelling of algae. I still couldn’t believe Jean had spotted it amongst the cattails. It was small, about the size of a marble, and darker than the darkest black. But he was convinced it was an egg, and that a dragon would hatch from it—an enormous dragon, with scales the color of polished rubies.

     “It’s not going to work no matter what,” I said. “It’s a rock. And even if it is an egg, why would it be a dragon egg? Maybe it’s a snake egg.”

     “Snake eggs aren’t black. I’m telling you it’s a dragon egg. When it hatches, you’ll see.” He looked around my room. “I don’t want it to roll off and break. Do you have anything we can put it in?”

     “Like what?”

     “I don’t know. Something small.”

     “All I have is this.” I picked up an empty shoebox I’d tucked between my bed and nightstand. “We can put in some of those wood shavings my dad keeps in the garage. That way it doesn’t roll around.”

     Jean nodded as he wiped flecks of dried mud off his nose with the sleeve of his black hoodie. We had crawled around the pond in search of fireflies, picking our way through the tall grass for over an hour, and all we had to show for it was mud speckled faces, legs, and arms. The bottom of our shoes were also caked with it. Mom was not going to like that one bit, which was why I’d insisted on hiding them behind one of her garden chairs. “‘Kay,” he said, still rubbing at his nose. “Go get it. I’ll wait here.”

     “Fine. I’ll be back.” I ran out of the room and down the hallway, bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor. Near the end, I slowed and poked my head around the corner to see if my mom was in the kitchen. The coast was clear, so I darted into the laundry room. The door to the garage was in there, and so was she. When she saw me standing in the doorway, she said, “Eren Marcel Yeager, have you seen yourself? You’re a mess.”

     “Mom,” I groaned when she came over and started brushing away crusted mud from my face with her apron. “Cut it out.”

     “How many times have I told you to stop coming home like this?”

     “I don’t know. A million?” I pushed at her hand, but she kept up her insistent scrubbing.

     “A million, and yet you came home looking like you swam in mud.” She gave my nose a playful squeeze. “Did Jean come over today?” I nodded, batting her hand away. “Is he staying for dinner?” Another nod. “I expect you both to get washed up before your father gets home. I will not have you sitting at my dining table looking the way you do right now. Last time the two of you left mud tracks all over my kitchen floor.”

     “We’ll wash up. Promise. Can I please go now?”

     “Under one condition.”

     “What is it?” I asked, suspicious. She bent forward and tapped her cheek. “Aw, Mom, come on. Really?” She waited. With a huff, I stood up on tiptoes and kissed her cheek.  

     “There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

     I shrugged. “Guess not.”

     “Go on. Dinner will be done soon.”

     “Can I go into the garage first? I need to get something.”

     She ruffled my hair. “Okay, but don’t touch any of your dad’s things.”

     “I won’t,” I lied. She gave me one final look before heading back into the kitchen. I waited for a while, then pulled open the garage door, hand shooting out to flip up the light switch. Dim yellow light filled the room. I hated being in here for too long, so I went straight to my dad’s work table, pushing aside his wooden toolbox, an old radio, and a can of lacquer. There, tucked behind everything else, was a bag of wood wool. I picked it up and slid it beneath the front of my T-shirt. Mom couldn’t get on me if she didn’t see me with anything.

     After I put everything back the way that it was, and turned off the light, I crept back into the laundry room. Mom sounded busy in the kitchen. Still, I booked it back to my room, bursting inside.

     “You get it?” Jean asked in excitement.

     I pulled the bag out of my shirt, but not before shutting my bedroom door. Couldn’t have my mom walking in. “I got it.”

     “Come on. Let’s set it up.”

     We sat opposite each other on my bed, the shoebox between us. I tore open the bag of wood wool and dumped some of it inside.

     “Spread it out,” Jean said.

     “I only have two hands. You spread it out.”

     He grabbed a handful, moving it to an empty spot. “That should do it.”

     “Grab the peb—egg.”

     Twisting around, he picked up the egg from the windowsill. When he placed it on top of the wood wool, he asked, “What should we name it?”

     “Don’t know. Maybe we should wait until it hatches. _If_ it hatches.”

     He glared at me. “It’s going to hatch.”

     “What if it’s not a dragon?”

     “It’s going to be a dragon, and when it gets big enough to ride, you’re not allowed to come along.”

     I flapped my hand at him. “You’re going to be riding a pebble!”

     He leaned forward and flicked me on the forehead. I flicked him back.

     “Eren! Jean!” my mom called from the kitchen, startling us both. “Wash up! I want you out here in fifteen minutes!”

     “Okay!” I yelled back.

     Jean and I exchanged looks, put the shoebox back on the windowsill, and went into the bathroom, shoving at each other the whole way.

 

* * *

 

 After dinner, I walked Jean to his bike, which he’d parked on the side of my house.

     “Take care of the egg,” he said as he grabbed the handlebars and climbed on. He hit the kickstand up with the back of his muddy shoe. Clumps of it flew off. “I mean it.”

     “I will.”

     “You better.”

     “I will,” I repeated.

     “‘Kay. See you tomorrow?”

     “Yep.”

     He waved goodbye. I watched him take off down my street.

 

* * *

 

 Jean knocked on my window early the next morning. Drowsy, I stumbled out of bed and unlocked it. He pushed it up and climbed inside, careful not to knock aside the shoebox. He asked, “Did it hatch?”

     I squinted at the sunlight. “No, stupid. What time is it?”

     “Seven.” He picked up the pebble, plucking off strands of wood wool and dropping them back into the shoebox. “When do you think it’ll hatch?”

     “Don’t know.” I got a good look at him then. Both his elbows and knees were scraped up. “What happened to you?”

     “Fell off my bike.”

     “They look pretty bad. Let’s go clean them.”

     “‘Kay.”

     We walked into the bathroom and Jean lifted himself up onto the counter while I hunted through the medicine cabinet for what we’d need. Blood was oozing out of the scrape on his knee. That didn’t seem to bother him too much, but when he saw me wetting a washcloth, his face screwed up. He avoided looking at me as I wiped the scrape. When it was clean and dry, I handed him a tube of antibiotic cream. “Put that on,” I said.

     “My hands are dirty.” He held up his hands to show me the dirt streaks running across his palms.

     “Then wash them. The sink is right next to you.”

     He grumbled something under his breath, but turned and twisted the handle on the faucet. While he washed his hands, I rubbed his elbow clean. “That hurts,” he complained. “You’re scrubbing it too hard.”

     “Stop whining. You have dirt in it.”

     “Give me that.” He snatched the washcloth out of my hand and held it under the warm water. A mixture of blood and dirt swirled down the drain. With pursed lips, he cleaned his other elbow by himself. I left him to it, unscrewing the lid on the antibiotic cream and squeezing some onto my index finger. Slowly, carefully, I rubbed a thin layer over the scrape on his knee. He winced, but otherwise said nothing.

     “Now your elbows,” I said.

     “Are you my mom?”

     “Your elbows,” I insisted.

     “You’re so annoying.” He bent his arms and lifted them up. I applied some ointment on the scrapes on his elbows. He dropped his arms afterwards. “Should I put band aids on them?”

     To answer his question, I set a box of Band-Aids on the counter. He took three out, slapping them onto his elbows and knee.

     Once we were done, we went back into my bedroom. I climbed into bed and buried my face in my pillow. I was still sleepy.

     Jean sat next to me, picking at the band aid on his knee. “How long do you think it’ll take for the egg to hatch?”

     “Forever,” I mumbled into my pillow. I turned my head and looked up at him, surprised by the frown on his face. It was hard to make him sad, yet I’d managed it. I scrambled for words. “Uh, maybe in a week?” I offered. “It’s a dragon, so it’s going to take a while.”

     He flopped down next to me. “You’re right. Dragons need a lot of time before they’re ready to hatch.”

     “Yep,” I said past a yawn.

     “I’m tired.”

     “You’re the one that came over this early.”

     “I wanted to see if the egg hatched.” He kicked off his shoes and slid under the blanket, smelling of ointment and dirt. The last thing I saw before I fell asleep was him looking up at the shoebox.

 

* * *

 

 A week past, and the egg still hadn’t hatched.

 

* * *

 

One night, while lying in bed, a thought came to me. We’d found the pebble washed up on shore, which meant it had come from the pond. Maybe it needed to be in water to hatch.

     Eager to test this out, I crept out of my bedroom and into the dark kitchen, where I searched through cabinets for something that could hold water. Mom would kill me if I used any of her favorite bowls, so I settled for an old plastic mixing bowl she’d used to dye Easter eggs last year. With it tucked under my arm, I padded to the bathroom and placed it in the sink. I filled it with warm water. Then I hurried back into my room.

     Setting the bowl down on my desk, I took the pebble out of the shoebox and dropped it into the bowl. It sunk to the bottom. I watched it for a little while, but after a few more minutes, the heaviness of my eyelids convinced me to crawl into bed. It probably wouldn’t hatch anyway. It was a rock.

     As I drifted off to sleep, I thought I heard a tiny splash.

 

* * *

 

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be real.

     Cracked pieces of black eggshell were at the bottom of the bowl, but whatever had been inside was gone. I darted glances around my room, panicking. Where could it have gone? And what even was it?       

     I needed to talk to Jean. I needed to talk to Jean right now!

     I hightailed it out of my room, skidding as I rounded the corner. My parents were in the kitchen. From the looks of it, my mom was in the middle of making pancakes, or maybe waffles. It didn’t matter. “Mom,” I shouted, loud enough to startle her. She dropped the spatula she held, while my father blinked at me in surprise. “I need your phone.”

     “What’s wrong? Why are you yelling?”

     “Nothing’s wrong. I just remembered that I need to tell Jean something.”

     “Okay.” She picked up the spatula she’d dropped and gestured to the table with it. “My phone is right there. Make sure you bring it back once you’re done.”

     “Uh-huh. I will.” I snatched it up and fled, barricading myself in my room. I dropped to my knees, dialed Jean’s phone number, and crawled around in search of...something.

     The phone rang once. Twice. _Come on. Pick up._

     “Hello?” Not Jean. Jean’s mom.

     “Hi, Mrs. Kirsten,” I said, trying to sound pleasant. “Can I talk to Jean?”

     “Hi, Eren. He’s feeling a little under the weather—”

     “It’s really important,” I interrupted. “I promise it won’t take too long. Five minutes tops.”

     A pause. “All right. But only five minutes. He’s coming down with a cold.”

     “Only five minutes,” I confirmed, poking my head under my bed. Nothing.

     “What is it?” Jean asked a moment later, sounding stuffy.

     “The egg hatched.”

     “Are you serious? No way! Is it a dragon?”

     “I don’t know what it is. It’s sort of...gone. I woke up this morning and couldn’t find it, but there are pieces of eggshell lying around.” I checked behind my desk. Still nothing. “I don’t think it’s a dragon, though. I put it in some water last night and that’s what made it hatch. I think it’s some sort of amphibian.”

     “Whoa, that’s a big word for you.” He laughed. Then, loudly, “Like a frog?”

     “Jean, I don’t know! I’m freaking out here. What if it’s something poisonous and it’s just crawling around my room?”         

     Silence. More silence.

     “Jean?”

     “I’m coming over.” He hung up.

 

* * *

 

By the time Jean got to my house, I’d turned my bedroom upside down looking for a slippery little creature. But I found nothing. The thing had vanished into thin air.

     “It’s gone,” I announced when Jean crawled into my room through the window. His nose and cheeks were a warm, bright red. His mom hadn’t been lying when she’d told me he was coming down with a cold.

     “It can’t be gone. Keep looking.”  
     “I’ve looked everywhere already!”

     “Not with me. Let’s look together.”

     Resigned, I searched through my room one more time, but we came up empty handed.

 

* * *

 

Sometime during the night, I heard it. A splash.

     I hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Just thinking about a poisonous creature sliding up my bare leg kept me wide awake and on high alert. I’d burrowed under my comforter, knees drawn up to my chest and eyes trained on the mixing bowl I’d left on my desk. I was determined not to leave any part of myself exposed to tiny, sharp teeth that could tear through skin. Then, while I’d been tucking my head beneath my pillow, a splash, followed by a teeny screech.

     I froze, heart going still in my chest.

     Slowly, slowly, I slid my head out and found the mixing bowl in the moonlit darkness of my room. Everything was still.

     _Splash._

My whole body went cold in zero point two seconds, my fight-or-flight response making my heart pound crazy fast. It was all I could hear now, the heavy thudding of my pulse in my ears. As I lay there, I had no idea what to do. Whether to run out and seek help from my parents, or man up and check the mixing bowl.

     _If I die_ , I thought, as I pushed the comforter aside, _make sure to kill Jean too._     

     I slid my legs over the side of the bed and stood up on wobbly legs. I took a step toward my desk...

     _Splash._

     _Stop splashing around, you creepy demon! I’m trying not to wet myself here!_

The bit of courage I’d summoned up was dwindling. All I wanted to do was to get the hell out of here, and fast. But I took another step, and then another, until I reached my desk. I squeezed my eyes shut, counted back from five, and then peered down into the bowl.

     “Holy crap,” I said.

     Swimming around in circles was a pocket-sized creature, with a sable black tail that reflected the moonlight. It swam round and round, looking for all the world like a miniature mermaid, but when I examined it closer, it stopped and looked up at me with beady, watery eyes. I swallowed hard. Scales ran along either side of its face, leading to hair as black as its tail. The scales stopped right past its slender throat, which gave way to an almost human-like chest.  

     “What are you?” I said in wonder. At the sound of my voice, it swam to the surface, mouth opening and closing. It screeched again. “Are you hungry? I don’t know what to feed you. I don’t even know what you are.”

     It swam to the bottom of the bowl, then back up to the surface, over and over again.

     “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.” In a panic, I stuck my hand inside the water, trying to coax it into my palm. It opened its tiny mouth and clamped down on my finger. Sharp teeth bit into my skin. “Ow! Let go!” I tried to shake it off, but little hands held my finger in place as it suckled. “Is that what you eat? Blood?” It hummed, content, small vibrations traveling up my finger. When it pulled back, I saw that its cheeks were flushed with color.

     _Great. Not only did Jean find a strange creature near the pond, but it also needs blood to survive. It’s a vampire mermaid the size of my palm._

“Where did you go anyway?” I asked, even though it couldn’t give me an answer. I wiped my finger on my pajama bottoms. “We looked everywhere for you. My friend, Jean—He’ll want to see you.”

     The creature paid no attention to my rambling. It swam to the bottom of the bowl, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing its face with its tiny hands. When it stopped, its mouth cracked wide as a cat’s.

     “Sleepy?” Cautiously, I put my hand back inside the bowl, flinching when it swam closer. It didn’t bite me again, so I slid my finger under its chin and tilted its head back. It nuzzled against me, making a soft purring noise. “I wonder what you are. You’re so tiny. Maybe you’re some strange version of an axolotl. You sort of have the same gills as they do.” It yawned again, nuzzling harder against my finger. I giggled, its feathery gills were tickling me. “You’re kind of cute, huh? When Jean comes tomorrow, we’ll name you.”

     I went to pull my hand back, but it clutched onto me. It chomped down on the tip of my finger again, but not as hard as the first time.

     “Maybe I should name you myself,” I said as it suckled, its eyelids drooping shut. “How about Onyx? Since your scales are black?” I shook my head. “No, that’s boring. Hmm.” I put my arm on the desk and rested my head on top of it, thinking. “My mom once told me that the name Levi means ‘joined in harmony.’ We’re two different species, but we can be friends joining in harmony. Pretty tacky, right?” Its mouth unlatched from my finger. I cupped it in my hand as it drifted to the bottom of the bowl. “Levi. Do you like that name?”

     The creature yawned, wide, flashing razor sharp teeth. It curled up in a ball in the center of my palm.

     I rubbed its cheek with my thumb. “Goodnight, Levi. Sleep well.”

**Author's Note:**

> Social media info: [✉](https://dressedindarkness.carrd.co/)


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